Movement that Continues

by SUNIL RAY

Resurgence of Indian State

The crusade launched against corruption is one of the significant historical moments that should not be misapprehended by those whose engagement in their movements to create a better world is equally commendable. What is important to understand is that any movement being waged by the people—whether for uplifting the cause of Dalits or against discrimination perpetrated against the minorities or disposse-ssion of peasants and tribals from ownership of land and other resources or for Right to Information—is in no way different from each other ’in essence’ in the final analysis. Each one of them leads us to gravitate towards achieving freedom from what is understood as internal colonialism. Each one in some way or the other is a part of the movement against internal colonialism that has its legacy in the movement against external colonialism. The unflinching assertion that Anna Hazare makes that we never got freedom, and hence the present movement is the second wave of freedom struggle is but a direct reflection of this. It is a cry against the evils of humanity in all forms that had their design of betrayal against the deprived from the days of the colonial period. It is an indomitable, irrestible cry for freedom that resonates in all ongoing movements organised by the Dalits, minorities, dispossessed peasants and tribals.

It is not that I intend to bring each movement under the same scanner and thereby ignore its veracity and underlining process it reproduces to reinforce the movement against deprivation. Deprivation is structural and it is this that our Parliament has allowed to accumulate over the years. It never questioned the widening rift between the people in the ‘free India’. It is a rift between those who use the system to have command and control over power and resources and deprive others by using the same. In other words, it is a rift between the powerful and the powerless. It is not the question of scams that have surfaced recently and triggered off a movement under the leadership of Anna Hazare throughout the country against corruption. It is more a question of development of an institution of corruption or deprivation that constantly undermines Parliament ever since we gained independence. When Anna Hazare says that it is the people who must decide, it reminds one that a democratic institution like Parliament is colonised by some other institution. Therefore, it is the people who must see that such an institution is decolonised.

It may be too much to be beholden to the logic of fallacy of composition while trying to invent the relevance of such a popular upsurge against corruption in the country for systemic change. No doubt it is characteristically different from that of a peasant movement or a movement being led by the deprived tribals. But, how do I argue that it is not a movement against an exploitative institution which is illusive but dictates formal institutions? It is a movement against this institution which is tinkered with, but never replaced, collaborated with, but never challenged and nurtured by the powerful to perpetuate their hegemony over the establishment. Any opposition of any kind to any extent against such an institution has a natural tendency to extend the horizon of the people’s movement beyond class or caste oppression. No matter who lights the fire as long as it transcends ‘real’ opposition against the institution of deprivation. Eruption of resentment or antagonism in the form of a mass movement against any social evil which is antithetical to the progress of humans has an organic link with other social evils since the essence of each evil is same; that is structural—and, therefore, the movement is against the establishment. For example, the movement against discrimination of the Dalits, women and minorities or a movement against impoverishment or dispossession or atrocity perpetrated by any agency or an environmental movement—each one originates from the same source which is none other than socio-economic structural imbalances and the power relations that exist against the deprived. This is as true as corruption that originates from the same, and, therefore, it may not be wrong to argue that a movement against it transcends more or less directly or indirectly all other forms of discrimination and deprivation.

While saying this, I do not intend to over-stretch my argument to assert that the upsurge against corruption, as is being witnessed today, will correct the structural imbalances our society is plagued with. Nor do I argue that such a movement is primarily orchestered to correct initial imbalances and reduce inequalities
that never stops growing in the era of globalisation. However, I do see a reason why the movement is to be considered as one that exhibits the people’s intolerance against the political establishment—the establishment that has completely failed to correct the structural imbalances, reduce inequalities and stop aggression against nature in the name of growth. It is an establishment that believes in fire-fighting solutions to see that the power relations remain unquestioned. The movement against corruption appears to be a product of culmination of the accumulated resentment against the establishment for all that it does—a growing sentiment exhibiting their urge to gain real freedom in ‘free’ India.

The scarcity of ‘real freedom’ needs to be understood against the backdrop of the incapability of the state as an institution to meet the basic requirements of all in society. If the same state fails to extricate the largest majority of Indians from the institution of deprivation, may it be social, political, economic, after 64 years of independence, the question that should come up is: should there be the resurgence of the state as an institution? While a question of this type never tends to trivialise the social evolution that any society passes through over time, experiments carried out by the state in the field of governance are questionable. What this means is that the political process as it exists today seems to have exhausted all its resources, leaving nothing to narrow down the difference that has been escalating between humans and humans and nature. It is, of course, an upsurge against corruption; but interpreting it as an upsurge against the establishment that lacks resources to stultify the failed political process is not wrong.

State, Market and Corruption

IT is not going back to the same unproductive debate on the state versus the market when capitalism has its way to expand its circuit through both the market and the state. The question of limit or boundary of the market is idiosyncratic in such a situation. Marketing or trading is inescapable under the expansionary move of capitalism, however imperfect or crony it might be. In other words, exchange of money or mortgaging of morality and therefore selling of loyalty, formation of lobby to extract from the system whatever is possible for the lobbyists etc. are all rationalised in some way or the other on the basis of the institutional parameters of the state. They are rationalised so long as they do not hinder the smooth sailing of business (scratching each other’s back is also a business!) The market, which is projected as a means of achieving efficient solutions through increased systemic efficiency by means of inducting merit (efficiency), proves more a mirage than what the reality is.

Lobbyism has become so rampant that even institutions engaged in creative learning or knowledge production are not spared. When sycophancy rules the roost, inefficient outcomes are bound to emerge. Here one must not view efficiency purely from the monetary cost-benefit analysis. In case of academic institutions, it is knowledge creation and in respect of other public institutions meant to deliver services, it is efficiency of the system in terms of delivery of quality services equally to all within a stipulated period of time. Even if one goes by the cost-benefit analysis, it may not be surprising for one to see how best performing each one is and therefore efficient. [Anything is best performing if the return over cost (in monetary terms) is higher!] However, it may cease to be so if the same is compared with the developed capitalist countries. In such cases, the return may work out to be much lower in our case, although it is higher than the cost. What does this mean? It means that we operate at the low level of efficiency, although this is projected as cost-efficient. Be that as it may, the basic issue, however, is left unanswered in such a situation. It is related to the distributional aspect of cost and benefits, that is, who benefits and at whose cost? This is never accounted for by the system. All that is left is favouritism/sycophancy/lobbyism, different faces of corruption that has become a cultural practice and overtaken the charge of distributing benefits and passing off the loss to the vulnerable. It is this culture that has pervaded every walk of life; and this instantaneously peripheralises efficiency and allows the system to function at the sub-optimal level. Worse still, it feeds the institution of deprivation.

All these happen under the guise of competitiveness, a delusion that global capitalism cannot survive without. The parasitical values embedded in crony capitalism have been facilitating global capital since the beginning of the globalisation era. The latter embraces the former even if it is non-competetive. Why can’t it be so if its capital circuit can expand at the low transaction cost with the help of parasitical values that are planted by crony capitalism? In other words, it is the parasitical values that give rise to deception, deprivation, forceful imposition of loss on to others, etc. that gain precedence over efficiency in determining the course of action. It is not that corruption was absent before globalisation. It did exist; but, globalisation has definitely contributed towards deepening it further since the parasitical values fit extra-ordinarily well with the values exemplified by greed and greed alone. The latter is enshrined in the market economy which is in the process of constant intensification under global capitalism. It is true that the economy has become more competitive but the nature of competition is different.

It is a competition within the powerful and the powerless. While the powerful, the minority, compete with each other to gain more and more than what they have in each field including social, economic and political, the deprived, the majority, compete with each other for survival. The relationship between the powerful and powerless is definitely not competitive. In country like India which is marked by deep structural imbalances, I am not sure, how the ethics of capitalism can have its proclivity over capital under the forces of globalisation. Corruption is bound to multiply in its scale and magnitude and have its ramification on the institution of deprivation when the market tends to intensify under global capitalism. All that happens under globalisation is that the system continuously renovates itself to feed the capital circuit to expand by all means including corruption. Corruption is then upscaled resulting in further shrinkage of the space of the deprived for survival. Its bulldozing effect on the moral institution reaches a point of no return. The ‘Anna movement’ is a response to this.

Politics of Co-option

ANY let-up in the movement may be a misplaced estimate at the present historical juncture. It was not perhaps correct to say the same immediately after independence when the economy and society were equally marked by the same structural imbalances. People at large had reasons at that time to rely on the then dominant political processes to rectify such imbalances. However, the political processes, instead of doing so, saw their engagement mainly in the politics of co-option for assuaging their threat perception in the people’s movements to their power structure. While the nation witnessed several mass movements during the last six decades, each movement, directly or indirectly, sought redressal of the same structural issues. But, the dominant political processes could succeed in managing either to peripheralise or co-opt them. While co-option has gained immense strategic importance in diluting the focus of the movement on the structural imbalances, I am not sure whether it can work as a strategy beyond a point in case such a movement takes place in future.

No doubt a popular movement like the present one may finally facilitate the nation to enact a new law. And, the law may succeed in crippling the institution of corruption to a certain extent. But, at the same time, what one needs to find out is how it finally impacts on the elimination of the structural imbalances. While a concern like this has no reason to reduce the importance of the present movement, one must treat it as another people’s movement which is organically linked to other people’s movements whose cumulative impact must be targeted at and help to eliminate the structural imbalances. No matter how strong the co-option strategy of the government may be, the people’s movement is unstoppable and is bound to manifest in different forms so long as the structural imbalances exist to feed the institution of deprivation. It must not be an oversight that the country has now entered a new phase with a great historical difference. It is a phase that seeks to destroy the culture of complacency and silence and defy further the demolition of the ethics of human survival. A culture of questioning the establishment finds its way to brew up. The movement of the deprived continues.

The author belongs to the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur.